Meet the Nonviolent Communication Trainers

As I’ve travelled the world learning and sharing Nonviolent Communication, I’ve met some inspiring people. I wanted to know more about them! Meet the Nonviolent Communication Trainer, I’ve been interviewing them.

All of the interviews are available for members of Words are Windows and as a member you get the chance to join live too, and ask your questions.

I love questions!

I have collated some of the clips here for you to see. What makes Nonviolent Communication trainers tick! Maybe we are getting some idea?

In May 2022 we met Magiari Diaz Diaz from Venezuala. She inspired us with stories of her life and capacity to take NVC into the heart to conflicts.

Last summer, it was very moving to spend time talking to Clare Palmer from the UK, about living with a terminal illness and how NVC has supported her.

More recently we met David Weinstock from the US, who talked us through some of his work with somatic experiencing and NVC. We even got the chance to practice together.

 

More of the clips can be found here.

 

If you’d like to learn more about Meet the Nonviolent Communication Trainer and Words are Windows you can find about it here. Maybe you have a trainer you’d like me to interview?

NVC Practice Days

Nonviolent Communication : Practice Days

Time to reflect and build skills in Nonviolent Communication 

10 am- 430pm

27th May, 25th July, 30th Sept and 25th Nov 2023

Want to achieve your goal of learning Nonviolent Communication?

It requires practice!

Join others from my online community of Nonviolent Communication practitioners:

Structure:

(All times UK – plus 1 hour for CET)

10 am First Round of Check-in with Shona-What do you want to practise? Do you need Shona’s support?

From here: Form groups or work on your own

or Deeper coaching from Shona to help you get clear on what you want to practise- if required

Otherwise- go and get on with practising: on your own or form groups,

11 am Second round of coaching with Shona (if needed)
12-1 Your time- take a break/ have a walk etc

1 pm Midway Check in with Shona, more coaching as needed

2 pm- 4pm  Practise- on your own or with others work on exercises, share ideas, journal or watch videos- you chose.

4 pm- Harvesting (Check out) Share what you’ve been up to and next steps.

430 pm Close

These days are part of the membership of Words are Windows. This is a way of getting input very regularly, to build your practice. With coaching support from Shona.

More details here

FAQ

1. Can I come and go?

Sure!

2. I want support with a particular piece of Nonviolent Communication when do i come?

Be sure to come at 11 to get coaching support from Shona and others. 

3. I don’t know what I want to do??

Come at 10 am for support to work out this first part.

4. I want people to practise with can I bring a friend

Come at 10 am to meet others who may be working on something – you can do it together- if your friend is not a member of Words are Windows remind them that the first month is free!

5. I just want to do my own thing, can I come?

Yes! Absolutely, the zoom room will be there for you if you need anything but you can drop in and say hi and get on with your practice for the day.

6. I want to share something I learnt with another trainer or in another class, can I do that?

Yes- just let Shona know 48 hours before and the tech things can be sorted for you to do that if needed and we will find people in the first hour.

7. How do I join?

Follow the link to the Mighty Network where these days PLUS Empathy Breakfast, Journaling Space, Regular Meet the Trainer Events and more happen. 

This way to Words are Windows

Deepening Your Empathic Listening Skills

 
Two-Day Training: Saturday 3rd +  Sunday 4th December, 2022

Deepening Your Empathic Listening Skills

with Nonviolent Communication Trainer and Assessor Shona Cameron

Montessori children’s centre “Montijn” Koningstraat 5-k 6641 KS Beuningen, The Netherlands

Practising and integrating Nonviolent Communication to keep empathy and compassion in mind and empower authentic communication.

  • Increasing our skills of empathy and authenticity
  • Grow our skills: everyone can get better at listening- even those of us who have been exploring and learning how to do it for years
  • What Empathy is and isn’t
  • How it cements relationships and builds trust

These two days will be experiential, fun and deep.

This training is being hosted and organised by Leon who is a candidate of Shona’s on the path to Certification in Nonviolent Communication. More Details on Certification Here

Joining information via Leon’s website 

Come and join other Nonviolent Communication enthusiasts and candidates to explore Empathy

Shona learnt my watching Marshall Rosenberg listen over many hours and days in his presence. This skill is especially precious to her and she is always eager to pass what she has learnt on.

Take your time to understand. Don’t just do something, be there.  M Rosenberday

When to Express or When to Listen?

When to Express and When to Listen?

Free online Workshop

My friend and colleague died on the 30th of August. To honour him and his love for NVC. This online offer is an activity I learnt from him.

We will explore shifting the decision-making in communication away from the brain: to discern, and listen closely to what the intelligence in our bodies is telling us- Listen or Express?

Some experience in NVC is required.

Questions? ask me shona@shonacameron.com

Saturday 17th September 

3pm UK time/ 4pm CET

90 mins 

Zoom Link sent on registration

Workshop now full, add your name to a waiting list

Remembering Robert Kržišnik​

In Robert's words- “For me it’s all about connection: from self-connection, through healing wounded parts of ourselves and embracing our whole being, to connect with others on a deeply sincere and vulnerable level. It’s about entering this experience of human existence fully, to manifest connection with the Whole, with the flow of Life.”

rumi quote that field

To learn more about Robert and his work and to buy a course he had just released visit Robert’s website.

Looking forward to seeing you,

and learning with you on Saturday.

Shona

Workshop now full, add your name to a waiting list

Feeling Numb?

an orange

Sometimes it’s hard to know what we are feeling. Have you noticed feeling numb? Even when emotions may be high or others talk about their feelings? I’ve talked many times about how I started exploring the inner world of my own feelings with “I feel numb”. A kind of emotional numbness? I had sense something was going on… but what…? When I checked I had no clue, like a connection wasn’t there.

I actually believe it’s impossible to feel nothing and we can all start somewhere. For me “I feel numb” was the start.

When I connected to the numb- which the simple act of turning my attention to the numbness was all it took. Something shifted. (Sidenote: In my years of working with others I find that most people tend to try to make this inner connection work overcomplicated. If this seems simple, that’s because it is, I’m wary of anything in psychology that is overly complex).

As I got curious my numbness had an edge, a colour even. It was grey and square and it sat in my body like a square.

With this came something more to engage with – in fact something more to form a relationship with. I chose to have this relationship be a compassionate one. Welcoming, warm and accepting. I was feeling something- even though my rational brain was sceptical and trying to tell me this was weird. Ah- these thoughts prompted some feelings…. wariness, disbelief… my attention enjoyed exploring these feelings. Again with compassion.

Rumi quote about The Dark Thought

I stuck with it, checking in and asking myself how do I feel? A new awareness arose over time. The consequence… the depression I had lived with for months started to lift… turns out numbness was what I needed to tune into into to offer compassion to myself. to really listen to myself.

A turning point – no longer feeling ONLY numb!

One day I found myself peeling an orange and I tuned into my feelings. The day had so far been dampened down by grey fog and yet there were moments of sunshine, sensations in my body I would call gratitude and delight as I peeled the orange at my kitchen counter. It was enough for me to notice I was no longer living as a depressed person in those moments, I was living moment to moment with my feelings as they moved.

Let’s end with a poem- a gem!

Wendy Cope poem 'The Orange'

If you are feeling numb…I suggest starting with “I feel numb”, feel it, get curious and see where that takes you. It;s so easy to dismiss it and look for ‘real feelings!

Reading

I really enjoy Daniel Siegel’s work and in particular his very readable book Mindsight, each chapter explores cases he has worked with and how people have worked with their inner world.

Adventures in Spirituality

tea lights

Similarly to many others bought up in England, I had an upbringing on the edges of The Church of England. As a family, we didn’t attend church and I wasn’t christened. However, schools in England and Wales are asked to hold a daily assembly with a Christian basis and this together with the Brownies was a grounding in the Anglican tradition. My grandfather was a Methodist and his funeral was a moment for me when I understood his deep faith in nature and human beings.

During my twenties and thirties, I joined a Buddhist lay community and enjoyed mediation and rituals. This attendance and daily practice fell away and I stopped enjoying the communication of the Buddhists around me. I found myself deep in Nonviolent Communication (NVC) as a moment to moment spiritual practise. Returning to meditation now as I walk in nature or as I pause and check in with my feelings and needs. I have attended Quaker meetings and really enjoyed the regularity the pause, once a week. I could really sense why and how a weekly check in with oneself was beneficial psychologically and spiritual.  Poetry and some music can transport me to touch something larger than myself.

In addition, and incredibly nourishing for me, are the moments of heart connection in an empathic dialogue. Usually in a 1 to 1 session and  also in groups that I facilitate. People become to me ‘as one’ there is no giver or receiver no fixer or healer and no wounded person. Time stands still and I touch something beyond myself.

I’m enjoying reading this blog by Jules Evans, I sense some overlap in our journeys and in fact he is inspiring me to step up and name my spiritual yearnings, leanings and adventures. I agree with him it’s not so easy to do in our culture without being accused of being ‘deep’. Also I want my spiritual life remain mine and I don’t want to impose my beliefs on others. Especially as an NVC trainer.

So I’m dipping my toe into Christianity again. With some nudging from an NVC trainer colleague and a talk she directed me to on reform in the Church of England and  I found Jules’  blog a reference to Rupert Sheldrake’s initiative about where to find Choral Evensong.

This is a totally new idea for me … but I’ve put my postcode into the search and found out where I can go and when. Here is Rupert Sheldrake talking about Choral Evensong, its history and why this website might be useful.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pXt5Bm7LP8[/embedyt]

I’ve got no idea if it will ‘work’ for me, I’m not even sure what that means. But I do have a thought that re-occurs that something is not in balance within me and I’m wondering if I am neglecting my spiritual life? What are the ways you explore your spiritual needs?

The pressure to do BIG social change that’s paralysing action

graffiti of word revolution with love in red

I came to Nonviolent Communication and social change via my work in schools. I knew they could be places that people wanted to go to every day- but it would take a shift at every level to do this.

Change seems so necessary because so much of our lives seem cut off from our natural ways of being and so much of what I have is dependent on others not having it including food, clothes and fuel. That change will need to be at a systemic level and I believe, BIG social change- a change in the way we behave and think and see each other.

Over many years of involvement in groups of people practising NVC I worry there are subtle messages that social change has to have a large audience to be social change- somehow I hear the words social change has got wrapped up in a definition that this has to be enormous- be making a difference on a global scale. I’m sure many people tell themselves- I’m not doing social change… because they don’t have a huge project they are involved in. one that the U.N. might have heard of!

Maybe we are stifling all our attempts to be of service to contribute to change because we immediately judge what we as doing as small and ‘not worth it’?

I would like us to see it differently. For example…If you are raising a child and have worked on yourself to undo your conditioning and are choosing not to use reward and punishment – you are involved in social change. If you greet the person who gets annoyed with you with kindness and care- you are involved in social change. We can all chose where we shop – this too is social change.

A social change project is a social change project regardless of its size and I can make my life a social change project if I want to.  How I speak to myself my be my first act of social change- especially if this is reversing trauma and abuse patterns in a family. How about acts of social change rather than acts of random kindness? And let’s start with ourselves.

What small social change acts will you make today? how can you apply Nonviolent Communication and social change?

Choosing Partnership over Domination

sunset over water

A blog I wrote, first published on Dian Killian’s website in April. We are co trainers on the Ireland IIT in October 2020. (Which finally happened in February 2022)

I have recently revisited the work of Riane Esler and her view of humanity as being divided into two lenses through which we can view the world:

  1. Partnership: Life is interconnected and is a web of relatedness.
  2. Domination: Life is a pile with some people the top and the aim in life is to overpower them and reach the top.

Riane Esler

If you believe that the world is there to be conquered and that your job is to be the best — to come out on top — this will permeate how you think about yourself, how you work and live with others.

I suggest that a misreading of Darwin has amplified this world view; his survival of the fittest theory being interpreted as a call for us humans to see the world as a battle and the earth as our battlefield.

It is no surprise that at this moment in time, I find myself reflecting on this again… it seems that we are caught right in the middle of a battle between these different world views at present or that something is amplifying in this long tussle.

I see Domination Systems and Partnership Systems at every level of being. I have grown up in Domination Systems and even the way I am with myself can be a Domination. For example, I favour my thinking and brain over the rest of my body at times and don’t listen to my body’s signs that I need rest, water or not to have that bar of chocolate — I can override or dominate the natural signs of my body and push on.

It will come as no surprise that as an NVC trainer, I have made it my life’s work to explore and live in the Partnership System. Ever since I met Marshall Rosenberg in 2004, I have taken the work of Nonviolent Communication and applied it as best I can in my daily life — personally and professionally as a psychologist and now I see NVC as the most valuable tool I have to disrupt the Domination System.

If I truly want to disrupt, then my work is to strengthen the Partnership System and weaken Domination Systems at every opportunity. That includes my inner work and reclaiming a natural way of being which is in tune with the flow of life.

If I am not careful, I very quickly and subtly fall into default patterns of Domination… because by definition they dominate! If I am stressed, tired, or in need of an empathic ear myself — maybe my little brain is full of my own stuff — I will slip into Domination.

When the world appears harsh and I have a story that it is crazy out there…. This is when I may need to slow down and check inside. Like the mediation teachers say: When I have time, I meditate for 20 minutes a day and when I don’t have time, I meditate for 40 minutes. It’s time to double our efforts to practice.

One subtlety I want to pay even closer attention to and crucially: If I have enemy images of the entire idea of the Domination System, as in:

  • “It’s wrong.”
  • “We should live differently.”
  • “Everyone should see that it’s better to be in the Partnership System…”

…then I am myself in the Domination patterns.

It’s a bit of a head-scratcher, so I’ll say it again in a different way: I must do the inner work to ensure I am not ‘pushing’ the Partnership System and suggesting in any way it is better than the Domination System. “MY WAY IS BEST!” can and will creep in.

For example, I see plenty of criticism of right-wing politicians at the moment and a maelstrom of back-and-forth. My heart sinks at any progressive thinker who claims to want to build a world based on partnership, equality and care for all, who then diagnoses a right-wing politician as a narcissist… seemingly blind to the contradiction and the slip into a language which disconnects. Those whose politics sit on the right are then justified to come back and say “Hold on… you claim to be kind and caring, yet you are calling me names…!!??“

It’s important then to keep practicing; to continue to choose Partnership: how I bank, where I shop, and the food I chose to buy, for example. It is crucial for me to remember — and I urge us all to remember — that we are not the judge of how large or small an action is. I am just beginning to explore fractals and am fascinated by how each of us, with our own view, our own actions can be part of a whole.

All I can do is get up each morning and hold an intention, letting go of any destination; this is warrior work. It requires discipline and training. No matter how many times the Domination Patterns in me think “I’ve got it! Now – I’ve understood how to do this thing called Nonviolent Communication (NVC)”… here comes another opportunity to show me how much I have to learn. For example, someone else will come into my life who I am challenged to dig even deeper within myself in order to build a connection.

If you practice NVC, one thing you can choose is to offer one more empathic response in your family, in a board meeting, on the bus… whenever you have the chance. I see empathy as a disruptor of the Domination System… we can all find someplace to find the power to act. I believe if we can do one thing differently something different will happen.

Some things to do

Here are some things that I do to support myself in living partnership in my own life:

  1. Journal
  2. Do a role play
  3. Attend a retreat
  4. Listen to my Domination Patterns inside.
  5. Take great care of myself
  6. Call on community: spend time with others who are also digging deep and want to do things differently.
  7. Spend time with others who have an opposing world view from you (although I advise you to start small here and build up)

And remember, if we don’t choose the Partnership Pattern, the Dominant Pattern will choose us. It’s embedded in our institutions, justice system, school system, and political system to name just a few, and it takes a force of nature to not fall back into these patterns.

The decision to be a disruptor of the Domination Pattern and a commitment to build partnership within ourselves and between each other and our planet needs to be a wholehearted warrior-like stance.

These are not the times for half-heartedly going to the gym; this is the time for full immersion in a training program!

There is a waiting list – while we all wait to see if it is possible to safely hold the International Intensive Training (IIT)- due to be held in Ireland in October this year. I look forward to talking some more about this there with you – or please comment below.

Fear of Others’ Reactions

stairway into mist

In a group I facilitate, we explored an insight I  didn’t fully ‘get’ when I heard it from Marshall Rosenberg. One I’ve been struggling to integrate for many years,  It’s a piece about how we are not afraid of the other person’s reaction but our response to their reaction. We think we hold fear of other’s reactions-  but no!

All those years ago in Switzerland, it landed in me like a truth that I couldn’t quite hear yet…and somehow I don’t find the words to talk about it even now with others.

I asked my colleagues- other NVC trainers around the world – what words they use to explore this, as I’m was not happy with how I explored it. These are the responses I got.

Gabrielle Grunt from Austria said: “I wrote it down word by word exactly how (Marshall) said it, because this was a most life-changing insight for me at that time and I wanted to remember it exactly in Marshall’s original words”

“You don’t have to worry about the other person’s response. You just have to worry about how you react to it, whether you have your giraffe ears on.” MBR

“Here’s another version I found in my notes (not 100% sure if it is exactly the wording Marshall used, in case someone wants to quote it… on this IIT Marshall mentioned this point so often, that I just wrote it down once as an exact quote – see above)”

“Our fear is never about how the other person responds. Then you give the power to the other person. It’s about what ears we put on to receive it. That puts the security into our own hands.”

Alan Seid from the US said he heard Marshall say:

“We are not afraid of the other person freaking out; what we’re afraid of is that we won’t know how to handle it.”

Allan Rolfs recounted this

“Years ago, and it reoccurs every once in awhile on the network, I posed the question, “What do you (trainers) do when you are triggered, what are your personal strategies?”.  I collected all the responses at that time (maybe 20 years ago).  I remember poignantly Marshall’s response, “I say to myself, ‘choose'”.  I’m still working on that.”

Me too Allan.

I still hold fear of the other’s reaction. I still worry about the other person’s reaction – and when I pause… is it me? Can I imagine it’s not about the other? is it about me? As Marshall points to something just out of my grasp at times. More to explore…I’m worried about the shame I feel as I tell myself I’ve hurt someone, I worry about anger coming my way and paralysing me – leaving me frozen and unable to speak to get my needs heard. I can breathe and choose…. My life as an experimenter in living NVC continues.

And you? Does it help? Are there some stuck place in you too around this?

_______
Photo by Joe Beck on Unsplash

Rest as Resistance

woman on a swing

Sad to say our trip to Spain was cancelled earlier this week.

We had been looking forward to meeting all the staff at Cortijo Romero, meeting you all and to working and resting together. We now have even more time opened up in front of us. I was struck with ideas of what to do… and how to use it… then I listened to this podcast- Rest as Resistance. Here was the shift in perspective I’ve been looking for.

Tricia Hersey weaves together so many powerful insights from her work- I urge you all to listen- then take a nap…. no seriously… even during this pandemic we are not resting enough- because of this pandemic we are not rested enough.

‘Using time’ is a capitalist idea and I want to step out of this brainwashing.

As I walked and listened I realised even my walking wasn’t full of rest… I was trying to ‘do’ my steps, I was trying to get somewhere- how about I danced while I walked? how about I let my arms swing? How about I rest my spine and let nature take over? We are born to walk and dance.

via GIPHY

Lately I’ve been inviting my 1:1 clients to slow down and be with their experiences. It seems to me that is where the magic is.
Our invitation next week is to rest in your feelings and needs, our course is entitled Find your Inner Compass. We still have spaces available for our mini- online course and for sure we will be encouraging you to rest.

Maybe with a bit more stillness than Beyonce here, but who knows?

Who are we to second guess what rest will look like?